Since its discovery 15 years ago, rotavirus has been recognized as the single most common etiologic agent of gastrointeritis in infants requiring hospitalization, in developed and developing countries alike. Rotaviruses are RNA virus of the family Reoviridae. While rotaviruses are known to replicate in a number of tissue culture cell lines and in the intestinal epithelial cells of a wide range of animal species, little is known about the nature of the interactions of rotaviruses with cells that support rotaviral replication. Sialic acid-containing glycoproteins have been identified which bind directly to rotaviruses. Yolken, et al., Jour. of Clin. Invest., Vol. 79, pp. 148-154, 1987.
Despite the important advances of biomedical research in the last decades that have led to the development of sophisticated therapeutic techniques, diarrheal diseases continue to be a major cause of mortality among infants and young children in the developing world. Thus there is a need in the art for methods and products for treating enteric viral diseases leading to diarrhea in children.